1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a cooperative adaptive lighting system using a vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-to-infrastructure, vehicle-to-pedestrian, vehicle-to-target or other vehicle-to-object (hereinafter collectively referred to as V2X) communication.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, various approaches have been used to control headlights which are also known as headlamps on vehicles. For example, a typical solution was to use a camera-based adaptive headlamp, also known as adaptive driving beam (ADB) or a glare-free headlamp. The headlamps' lights change lighting shape and intensity distribution profile based on oncoming or preceding vehicles or possibly upon the detection of a pedestrian, all of which is captured by the camera. In many countries, especially in Europe, advanced driving beams are regulated and it is anticipated that they will soon be regulated in the United States.
There are various disadvantages of some of the prior art approaches which include poor distance accuracy with a camera, which is typically a mono-camera, in particular at higher vehicle speeds. Accurate distance measurements are critical for headlamp ADB, and with camera systems of the past, such accuracy was generally not obtained.
Another problem with prior art camera systems is that ADB camera systems would only detect objects within its field of view.
Specific to pedestrians, at night, if the pedestrian is in a zone of poor lighting, the pedestrian might not be detected by a camera system at all, which may lead to a dangerous or hazardous condition for the pedestrian.
There is, therefore, a need to provide an improved system and method that overcomes one or more of the problems of the prior art.